


Blue Wind

by ElderWhizzerBrown



Category: Spring Awakening - Sheik/Sater
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Deaf West Cast, Gay Male Character, Gen, Ilse and Moritz are each other's gay best friend, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Lesbian Character, One-Sided Attraction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-25
Updated: 2018-10-25
Packaged: 2019-08-07 13:08:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16409114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElderWhizzerBrown/pseuds/ElderWhizzerBrown
Summary: There weren’t many options for a young girl runaway in nineteenth-century Germany, but of them, Ilse supposed the artist’s colony wasn’t all that bad. Some of the men weren’t all that different from her father, but plenty of the people were nice. Mostly, though, Ilse blocked it all out and just remembered. She ached to imagine how her friends' lives were moving on and she was static and isolated here.





	Blue Wind

She was seven when it started and fourteen when it stopped. Ilse stopped it. She did that. She’d been scared for seven years and was sick of it, so she stopped being scared and walked out the back door with just a small bag.

Ilse had always fancied herself strong, though she knew she wasn’t. Her feet had trembled as she stepped out into the late winter. Her head had spun around to check and see if her father was waking. Her knuckles went white with how tightly they clutched her coat. Of course she wasn’t brave.

There weren’t many options for a young girl runaway in nineteenth-century Germany, but of them, Ilse supposed the artist’s colony wasn’t all that bad. Some of the men weren’t all that different from her father, but plenty of the people were nice. Mostly, though, Ilse blocked it all out and just remembered. She ached to imagine how her friends' lives were moving on and she was static and isolated here. 

She wasn’t happy. The artist’s colony was better than her home, but the last time Ilse was entirely happy was five years old, playing pirates with Melchior, Moritz, and Wendla.

When she remembered Melchior, Ilse thought of curly brown locks spilling out from under a pirate hat, triumphant smile on his face as he defeated the imaginary enemies. Even then, he’d been the bravest of them all. As they grew up, they watched him grow apart from all of them but Moritz. Melchior was the one who got in trouble, the one who disagreed with adults for no reason other than they were adults. But when he was five years old, he was the one who made sure everyone got a turn being captain. When they were five, Ilse was one of his closest friends, although not as inseparable as he and Moritz.

No, the one she was inseparable with was Wendla. A memory of waving a sword behind her as Wendla walked the plank in their game comes to mind. When she was eight, Ilse noticed her best friend’s soft blond hair, starry eyes, and shy smile. Of course, Ilse had seen these things before, but when she was eight, she noticed them. When she was eight, fireflies buzzed in her stomach when Wendla laughed. When they were thirteen, Wendla leaned in close to her and signed, “I think I like Melchior,” and the fireflies died painfully. They stopped being so inseparable after that. 

After that, Moritz was her best friend. He was jumpy and awkward at five, but happy. Happiness that melted away as they got older. When they were ten, sitting after school beneath a tree together, he kissed her. Ilse almost died from panic, remembering her father, but then she opened her eyes and it was Moritz. Moritz, her friend. Her friend who’d never hurt her. 

He pulled away after half a second, breathing hard, eyes wild. “Mother says that at my age I’ll start noticing girls differently,” he offered as an explanation. 

“So you mean you like me?” Ilse asked. Moritz was her friend. She didn’t know what she’d do if he liked her. 

Moritz shook his head violently. “No!” He paused, hands picking at his sleeves before jumping back into signing. “But Mother says I probably will. She says most children like their best friends first.”

Ilse nodded in agreement. She’d long ago realized that what she felt for Wendla was what she was supposed to be feeling for boys. “But your best friend is Melchi.” she signed slowly.

Moritz flinched. “I don’t like you,” he repeated like she hadn’t moved at all. It dawned on Ilse then, why he wanted to like her so badly.

“Who do you like?” she probed. Moritz shook his head. “Come on, you can tell me.”

He made some sign half-heartedly. Ilse couldn’t see what it was. “Come again?” she asked.

“Melchi,” he signed stiffly as if terrified someone would see. “I like Melchior.” His hand trembled and he trained his gaze on the ground. “I don’t understand.” 

Ilse gently lifted his chin so he could see her. “I don’t either. I don’t know why I blush whenever Wendla holds my hand. I don’t know why I like her instead of a boy.”

Moritz was staring when she looked back at him, so she offered a smile. Then he smiled at the ground. He spent the rest of that day gushing feverishly about Melchior. It was clear he’d never expressed any of this outside of his head before, and now that the floodgates were opened, the words were tripping over each other to get out. 

When she’d left home, he’d had yet to do anything about it. But so much could have changed in the months she’d been gone! Ilse found herself constantly wondering about her friends, imagining scenarios where she’d go visit and find Moritz was finally happy again and Melchior liked him back, where Wendla would realize her own feelings for Ilse.

But it could never happen because Ilse could never return.

She was slightly drunk the next time she saw Moritz. That’s what she blamed it on. Ilse was often drunk after a night with the artists, except this time, she stumbled upon Moritz, sitting on a rock in the middle of the woods, staring blankly at the ground. 

“Moritz Stiefel!” she called out, delighted before remembering he couldn’t hear her. She rapped on his shoulder.

He startled and looked up, recognition flashing across his face and a small smile at the edge of his mouth. “Ilse. You frightened me.”

Ilse sat next to him and told him all about her new life, about getting drunk in the snow and having friends. She wanted to ask about home, but something stopped her. It was as if she knew that if she knew about his life, knew that none of her fantasies held any water, she wouldn’t be able to bear it. Besides, Moritz wasn’t saying anything.

Finally, she stopped jabbering and looked at him. He was so quiet, nothing like the boy she knew. Or maybe he was exactly like the boy she knew. Hadn’t Moritz never been happy? The last time he was entirely worry-free was when they were five years old.

Had she been happy since they were five years old either? She didn’t think so. Her father had made sure of it. But she was improving, now that she was with the artists. Above all, she just wanted Moritz to be … not happier, but something a little closer, perhaps. “I’m on the way home. Want to come?”

He shook his head. Again, Ilse was struck by how much this boy was a stranger. Moritz should have been smiling in relief and nodding, not refusing. “I wish I could. You know. Schoolwork.”

“Right. Schoolwork.” Ilse didn’t know if this is true. She didn’t know anything about this new Moritz or his new life. Were Wendla and Melchior this different too, now? 

“Remember when we played pirates?” An idea struck her. “Come back to my house. We’ll dig up those old tomahawks and play together, Moritz. Like we used to.”

A sentimental look glazed over in his eyes and he smiled - a real smile, now, big. “We did have some remarkable times. Hiding in our wigwam.”

Ilse’s hand ran through his hair. It was matted and messy. “When was the last time you brushed this?” she laughed. “Come on, I’ll take you home, brush it out, curl it…”

“Like I said. Schoolwork,” Moritz’s joints were stiff as his hands moved. “Good night, Ilse.”

Ilse recoiled in shock. He couldn’t be dismissing her just like that! “Good night?! Just for an hour!”

“Ilse-” she cuts him off.

“You know, by the time you finally come to your senses, I’ll be dead on some trash heap. Forgotten.” She didn’t check to see his reaction before storming off.

She regretted it immediately but still could only see red. Moritz was supposed to be her best friend, and now he wasn’t. Was Ilse’s place in the universe so fragile that being gone for a few months made everyone forget her? She shouldn’t be angry at him, but couldn’t help but feel that Moritz had betrayed her, somehow. It was his fault! He was supposed to be her best friend who never changed or went away-

And then she heard the gunshot.

Ilse was no stranger to fear. She’d felt it every night when she lived with her father, when she left, when she thought about her friend’s forgetting her. Somehow, however, when she went back to that clearing, it was the worst of all the fear she’d ever felt.

She threw up as soon as she saw him. It was too late. She was too late. This was her fault. She’d been so wrapped up in her self while her best friend -

The funeral was the first time in months when Ilse saw her friends. Wendla smiled weakly and hugged her, Melchior didn’t notice her or anyone’s presence at all, eyes foggy and distant and not saying a word to anyone. She wondered if he had known. If he blamed himself as much as she did.

Ilse was just a ghost. Everything had moved on without her and she should have known she was choosing this, but she couldn’t stop trying to stay in her friend’s world.

After Melchior was sent away for some offense, Wendla was the next to go. She died of ‘anemia’, they told her, and Ilse almost died herself. She had seemed fine at the funeral! What on earth could have happened in that time? 

Ilse had left and then it seemed her friends were dropping like flies. She prayed that night, prayed for God to stop killing them off if she would just return home. She could manage. She’d probably be married in a few years anyway. But Ilse received no answer. 

Not long after, Melchior sent her a letter. Ilse found the other girls and read it aloud to them.

“Ilse, I have been running for days, but at last I am back. Now, I beg you - for the sake of our old friendship.” Their old friendship. The one he hardly acknowledged anymore. “Bring Wendla to meet me tonight, in the graveyard behind the church-” 

“Oh, no…” Anna murmured. He must not have heard about her.

Ilse swallowed and forged on. “I will be waiting there at midnight. Melchior Gabor.”

Thea gave a loud sigh. “So he hasn’t heard,” she signed slowly, voicing everyone’s thoughts. Melitta gave her sister’s shoulder a gentle pat.

“Waiting for Wendla, Wendla who’ll never come.” Martha hugged her knees tighter. 

“Poor Melchior,” Thea looked over the letter.

Anna now: “Poor Wendla.” 

Ilse stood up, handing the letter to Thea and Melitta. “Well, we can’t do anything about, can we? We can’t do anything about any of it. Couldn’t save Moritz, couldn’t save Wendla. Now we can’t save him. Of course we can’t. It’s their story, and we’re just the minor characters, not the heroes.”

None of them expected her sudden rant. Ilse felt oddly satisfied to leave them speechless; she turned and walked away. 

She couldn’t live with a foot in her friend’s world anymore. Couldn’t live with herself, with her constant failures. She wasn’t strong enough, no matter how hard she tried to be. 

Ilse left for the artist’s colony and never looked back.


End file.
